Joey Lippo, seen here during a practice, swung a big bat in his team’s 10-4 win. (Patrick Kelley photo)
The following story is written by Joe Lippo. To read more of his stuff, check out his hockey blog at http://11andcounting.blogspot.com/.
The Little League Majors All-Star Tournament kicked off in Sedro Woolley with Central Whidbey taking on South Skagit.
The Coupeville boys have high hopes for this year’s tourney, and coaches Bob Brown, Scott Losey and Steve Hillborn are confident that this team can go far.
“We have plenty of pitchers,” Brown said. “Julian Welling has about five different pitches, Jake Pease is solid and Jared Brown has this one pitch where the ball curves the other way.
“Don’t know how he does it yet, but were not messing with it,” he added. “Almost everyone on this team can pitch well.”
The first inning opened with South Skagit walking twice and hitting two singles and a double off of Pease, good for four runs.
Now, I know what’s going through your heads, and I just want you to keep reading at this point, OK? Keep. Reading.
In the bottom of the first, the Skagit pitcher walked two, and then Joey Lippo opened Central Whidbey’s scoring with a deep shot that sailed over the outfielders’ heads and landed six feet shy of the fence and rolled under it for a ground rule double, scoring one.
At this point, we should remember that Coupeville, when behind by seemingly any number of runs, has the other team right where they want them: up front and overconfident. This is the norm for this season, it seems.
The top of the second inning resulted in no runs for Skagit as Pease decided that he had had quite enough of Skagit’s batters, thank you very much, and the Central All-Stars came back to the plate.
The Skagit pitcher quickly loaded the bases by walking Jared Brown, then giving up singles to Pease and Welling. Then Lippo cleared most of them just as quickly with a single, driving in his second and third RBIs of the game.
After two innings, it’s 4-3 in Skagit’s favor.
In the third, Skagit was chased back onto the field early again, scoring no runs under Welling’s pitching onslaught, and the Skagit pitcher was back on the mound.
Ty Eck started with a single, Jared Brown followed with his own single, and then Kyle Rockwell made it back-to-back-to-back singles, sending two runs home. The next four batters walked before Skagit could stop the bleeding, letting Coupeville take the lead 6-4.
The fourth was uneventful, and many took the opportunity to find something to eat or drink.
As the fifth inning began, it was obvious that Skagit had finally gotten the memo: the boys from Central only get better as the game wears on.
If that wasn’t enough, they were forced to endure a fourth straight scoreless inning, and were very quickly back in the field yet again after watching the pitching clinic put on by Welling, and experiencing a sudden end to their inning when catcher Pease threw to third-baseman Lippo for the pickoff.
In the bottom of the inning, Brown and Bryce Payne walked so that Pease could get a couple RBIs with a double that scored both of them.
Solid hitters Welling and Lippo both got on base with singles, then Nick Etzell, Eck and Matt Hillborn all hit to add two more runs and make the final score 10-4.
The last hopes for Skagit to rally for a late game comeback were dashed quickly as Whidbey’s closer, Brown, fooled three batters in a row to win the game and move his squad a step closer to the District championship.
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